Experimental and Analytical Investigations of Dynamic Characteristics of Magnetorheological and Nano Magnetorheological Fluid Film Journal Bearing

The integrity and reliability of a rotor depends significantly on the dynamic characteristics of its bearings. Bearing design has been altered in many ways in order to achieve improvement in terms of damping and stiffness. A promising field in terms of vibrations control and overall performance improvement for the journal bearings is the use of smart lubricants. Smart lubricants are fluids with controllable properties. A suitable excitation, such as an electric or a magnetic field, is used as a means of smart fluid properties control. Magnetorheological (MR) fluids consist one category of lubricants with controllable properties thanks to magnetic particles inside the fluid volume. In this case of material, a magnetostatic field affects the apparent viscosity of the fluid by aligning the magnetic particles into chains. In this work a magnetorheological fluid is produced. A magnetorheological fluid film bearing was constructed, capable of exciting the magnetorheological fluid. These bearing performances are examined experimentally and its dynamic properties are evaluated using an impact excitation method for a SAE-10W lubricant as well as with the produced magnetorheological fluid both in its active and in its inactive state.